Articles

The Best Live Music Brought
to Your Home by the IBEW

March 19, 2014

New York Local 1212 member Dan Campbell at work in the Ed Sullivan Theater, producing the Live on Letterman concert series

There was a time when live concerts were a staple of broadcast television. American Bandstand was on the air for 37 years, and seemingly every town with a TV station and access to a gymnasium had a local version. There was even a time when MTV would beam out performances by bands big and small, produced by a professional crew of cameramen, sound engineers and set designers.

Amateur recordings of amateur musicians abound on the web, but for music fans that like concerts without a panel of judges enthroned between the audience and the band, choices have been shrinking.

But there is at least one stage left where the technical engineers behind the mics and cameras are as talented as the people on the stage. Over the last 20 years, the Late Show with David Letterman has become one of the last, best places to see a live musical performance without getting up from your couch. Every show since Billy Joel played opening in 1993, has been brought to you by members of New York Local 1212.

The intimacy of the Ed Sullivan Theater is part of the attraction for bands, like mgmt., who normally fill much larger venues y, according to Local 1212 member and camera operator Dan Campbell.
photo courtesy CBS Interactive

Dan Campbell, Emmy-award winning camera operator for the Late Show said:

I don’t even know how many concerts we’ve done. Even the great ones, there are too many to count.

Musical goliaths and bands on the make alike have made the journey to the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, and played to millions. The downside, of course, is that the bands usually come on last, after the host’s inimitable interviews with celebrity and not-so-celebrity guests. Appearances are brief, often just a single song.

So in 2009 CBS Interactive launched Live on Letterman, webcasts of extended performances by musicians that appear on the show.

Over the last five years, the show has hosted more than 70 Live on Letterman concerts, often featuring bands that haven’t played a venue as intimate as the 460-seat theater in decades, including U2, Kiss, Foo Fighters and Taylor Swift. The famous stage has also hosted less well-known and cult favorites like Band of Horses, the Shins and Wilco. According to CBS, more than 185 million people have watched the webcasts, either live or on-demand.

Local 1212 Business Manager Ralph Avigliano said:

The Ed Sullivan Theater marquee on Broadway, home of The Late Show and the Live on Letterman concerts
photo courtesy CBS Interactive

These productions are a perfect demonstration of the versatility and expertise of our IBEW technical engineers. And the audiences they draw are proof that I’m not the only one who thinks our members are the best there is.

Producing the webcast requires a complete transformation of the set twice in one day. During the show, Letterman and his desk are front and center and the musicians play downstage and to the side. For the concerts, stagehands strip the stage bare, shuffle the desk into the wings and plant the band at the very edge of the stage, almost beneath the audience in the balcony.

Then the IBEW technicians are unleashed, hustling the production consoles offstage and then deploying an armada of cameras and microphones. Campbell said:

We put cameras out in the audience, on booms and these little POV [point-of-view] cameras, we call them weasel cameras, all over the place: on the drum set, the keyboards, anywhere the director wants. Then we make sure they are up and running and operate them during the show.

New York Local 1212 member Dan Campbell at work in the Ed Sullivan Theater, producing the Live on Letterman concert series

Concerts last 45 minutes usually, but they played two hours.The first hour,we mimicked the old Ed Sullivan set, they dressed like the Beatles and we broadcast in black and white. The second hour, we switched to color and they blew the roof off.